As Starbucks Bleeds Square, Can Startups Working With Retail Registers Make Any Real Money?

But regardless of ShopKeep's upper ceiling as a company, its growth is another sign of how difficult it is to win with payments alone. ShopKeep's already partnered with PayPal to do mobile payments in some of its stores, and sees an annualized $1.8 billion in run rate crossing its system each week. That's many times the amount of money that's actually going to ShopKeep's coffers--which is why when ShopKeep talks about getting to a one billion dollar milestone someday, it's got to do that by bringing on hundreds more small businesses--not simply swiping credit cards.